URI Basketball Recap: A Very Disappointing Season - Jim Malachowski

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Jim Malachowski, Sports Columnist

With the loss in the first round of the A-10 Tournament to St. Louis 74-71, URI finished the 2023- 2024 basketball season at 6-12 in the conference and 12-20 overall. With the season over, it is time to assess their performance and compare results to expectations. For this team this year, it’s difficult to definitively state what the expectations were going into the season. The mass departures from the prior year’s team necessitated bringing in 10 new players. Ram faithful did not know what to expect.

 

URI picked 14th of 15 in the A-10 preseason coach’s poll

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The A-10 community was also in a quandary, not knowing what to make of these new Rams, placing them 14th out of the 15 teams in the preseason poll. URI finished 11th in the conference. Preseason polls are notoriously inaccurate. Those surveyed had to guess about an unknown team. This poll was woefully inaccurate, with 60% of the teams finishing more than five places different than predicted.

 

READ ABOUT MILLER'S BIG RAISE

 

Miller felt his team was being underestimated

During the A-10 media Day and in comments over the first few weeks of the season, you could tell Coach Arcie Miller thought his team was being underestimated. He had been watching their offensive power and ability to score in multiple ways during practices. He was like the kid with a secret he could not tell but was dying too.

Many felt that the A-10 had improved over the past year, with two very strong teams and seven or eight teams of generally equal talent who would be bunched in the middle of the standings.  There was great hope URI would be one of these teams, and a slightly optimistic 9-9 conference record was not out of the question.

 

Conference play began with three straight wins

URI started conference play with three straight wins, beating Saint Joseph’s, Delaware, and UMass. People took notice, and excitement for this new team began to build. Those three games turned out to be the highlight of a disappointing season.

 

Collapse begins as the defense was exposed and the offense stymied

In the three victories, their opponents scored in the 70s.  The mild concern about the defense bloomed into full-fledged panic over the next two games. With a minute to go, St. Bonaventure had scored 99 points, and the crowd chanting “100,” “100,” and “100”, Bonnie Coach Mark Schmidt mercifully instructed his offense to stop playing, saving the Rams from the indignity of giving up 100 points.

Coach Schmidt, known for unusual defenses, employed a strategy that left a URI player uncovered, having his center stay in the middle of the paint. This defensive strategy greatly hindered URI’s offensive strategy of pounding the ball inside. It also provided a double team when a URI player drove to the hoop. The Rams lost 99-64. The other A-10 teams saw the game film and strategy. For all practical purposes, the Rams’ season was over.

Rhode Island then traveled to Dayton to play the league favorite on their home court. In baseball, when the opposing picture is ineffective, players race to the bat rack to get into the batter’s box to hit. At Dayton, Flyer players raced to the scorer’s table to get into the game to pad their offensive statistics. The talented Dayton squad also collapsed their defense inside to protect the paint. URI lost 96 to 62.

 

URI loses 13 of 16 games

From St. Bonaventure on, the opponent’s defensive strategy and URI’s inept defense led to Rhode Island losing 13 of its last 16 games. URI’s opponents scored at least 80 points in nine of those games. At times, the games were competitive, and at other times, they were painful to watch. The URI defense was one of the worst in the country. They could not protect the basket with a loaded M-1 Tank.

After scoring 91 points at home and losing to St Louis, the team lost their intensity, and there were questions about cohesiveness and what was happening in the locker room. Winning glosses over problems and playing time issues. Losing puts a sharper edge on everything.

The team rebounded a bit during their last conference game, beating Fordham on the road and limiting the other Rams to 50 points, which was by far the lowest number of points an A-10 opponent scored against them all year.

 

Early exit from A-10 tournament

After a listless first half in their opening game of the A-10 Tournament, URI rallied after the break from a 9-point deficit to take the lead. They played with intensity and played well defensively, limiting the potent St. Louis offense to 33 points in the second half. Alack and alas, down the stretch, the same issues that plagued the team all year surfaced again. In the last two minutes, they missed two free throws, failed to get back on defense allowing an easy basket, committed a turnover, and the defense broke down leaving a Billiken wide open under the basket. Their season ended, and the Rams left Brooklyn with many questions swirling around.

 

What’s next?

Coach Miller has bluntly stated that the season has been a disappointment. Rebuilding is painful, and NIL and the transfer portal have complicated things. In my view, the team has a good core to build on. Whether the players will stay together or transfer out is the question.

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